The CIO’s are currently challenged with new needs that come from marketing department and marketing department can no-longer operate without collaboration with ICT responsible people. Although Big Data sounds like an elephant, you don’t need to eat it with one bite. Majority of Big Data corporate scale initiatives can be done manually in smaller scale or with less expensive technologies. Testing, piloting, learning and calculating business cases from them enable solid foundation for larger investments and management attention.. even urgency. Every change starts from recognition and inspiration. This presentation might just spark that first step towards major transformation. Enjoy and share with your management team!

~~~~

Gene

CDO reminds me of CKO more than CIO — and also suffers some of the same challenges as head of BI in the blog by Boris in the job description. Most of the arguments are valid until we take the entire organization into view and that’s where I see problems.

Anytime this discussion on a new officer comes up it tends to rise from the desires, need to have more influence in the org, and aspirations of the specialist (and their ecosystem) rather than the need of the organization. Similar to a strong EA for example, what typically matters is whether the CEO (and board) is competent or not, paying attention to how the organization functions or not, and whether the culture and relationships are collaborative, combative, or even apathetic.

Unfortunately, one impact we have observed with the CIO and a few CKOs was confusion over the title officer by the entire organization, including those holding the title, when they suddenly became obsessed with their own power rather than service to others. Whether BI, EA, or CKO, in some cases we observed quite strong individuals who were driving critical value to the organization, but reporting to an infrastructure CIO who didn’t understand much at all about business or organizations, or worse in a few cases simply concerned with protecting their own turf rather than the mission of the organization and customers.

Generally speaking I think it’s wise to allow the brand of the individual rise up in the organization based on functionality, knowledge, and contributions to the organization–rather than yet another title ending with officer. Indeed, often has been the case when a person with a more humble title has had more impact, even in aggressive and highly competitive cultures, particularly when they are wicked smart and wise.

One problem rarely discussed is that corporate officer in many companies has real meaning in terms of authority, responsibility and legal accountability whereas in most cases the job description title of officer does not, creating confusion internally and externally (I am thinking now of one giant tech company in particular where titles have been a disaster to everyone but the CEO who hands them out).

I personally prefer scientist over officer and I’m not terribly fond of scientist (except when used properly to describe a true scientist) due to the disconnect in meaning and culture between science and business that is too often manifest in organizational dysfunction. I see functional roles more of a master craft person who may lead a small team, but is more interested in the value of their work than career aspirations to one day become a CEO, or even to lead large numbers of people where internal and external politics tend to rule. In fact it’s been my experience that the strongest functional people do not have any desire to hold the title of officer.

So my fear based on previous experience and observations is that in the rare highly functional organization the role and title will also function well–regardless of what we call it, but in the norm it may do more harm than good, in which case the stronger professional will likely either avoid the organization to begin with or move on at the earliest opportunity. .02- MM

Quickly comparing a Q4 2012 report by SocialBakers on how Company Pages on Facebook have increased the response time to interact with its audience:

• The average brand response time on Facebook is now 13.7 hours, compared to 20.9 hours in Q2 2012.
• Brands answer 55% of questions posed to them on Facebook; in the second quarter of 2012, only 30% were answered.
• Airlines, finance and telecom remain the three most responsive industries, though their positions have shifted since Q2 2012.

It all looks glossy but, something that still makes it unworthy is the automation of responses. People automate tweeting, Facebook posts to happen on regular intervals to ensure 24*7 availability and more importantly for search optimization. (Google search matters a lot, I know!)

Does it make you any special, or at least any better? The alternative could be humanize your interactions. Whether it’s a product or service, it’s a service to humanity at the end of the day. So when it looks and feels like you, when you are the trusted source and not like an automated blabber – then you are on the spot and valued.

Making 20 automated tweets/posts doesn’t matter. If you have 5 sensible interactions, you have made justice to your day on social media.

Go social, but stay human!

By now, we are all familiar with Google Analytics, but we haven’t discussed many of the options available for social media statistics. Google introduced Social Reports last year, giving users a lot more options for tracking social conversions. Unfortunately these reports are somewhat lacking compared to HootSuite and Adobe Social. The fact that Google’s Social Reports don’t include unique data for Twitter and Facebook really hurts their attractiveness to potential users. Instead, they have unique options for Google+, which we all know isn’t really succeeding as well as Google had hoped. While this free service is certainly a nice option, it may not be the best for businesses that are serious about CRM.

This brings us to HootSuite. Their social analytic service is quickly becoming my favorite. They have many options for all of the top social media sites and are even certified by Twitter. Optimizing social media is the main goal for their business, so I would imagine their support system exceeds those of Google and Adobe, who have many larger business ventures.  They offer multiple options for all size businesses, including a $9.99/month plan that includes 1 free report a month ($50 for each additional), and an Enterprise plan that is quite expensive ($1499/month), but includes unlimited analytics.

Finally, Adobe introduced a social media optimization program last year called Adobe Social. This program seems very similar to HootSuite in that it allows users to get specific data from Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites, rather than general backlink data provided by Google’s Social Reports. However, like most Adobe products, the price for this service seems to be very high. While I couldn’t find any exact pricing, the Beyond Likes article from Mashable tells us the prices are in the “tens of thousands” rang.

Applying a successful social media CRM strategy means understanding your target audience’s ‘Digital Selves’. Bank of the West is a great example of how to go about this, as described in the American Banker article. They were able to increase social interactivity by offering incentives to customers. This seems like a solid way to implement a new marketing campaign. We also read about this with Expedia in the Beyond Likes article. The trick to this would be to stay fresh with incentives and to make sure the profits generated outweigh the costs of the incentives.

Social analytics don’t necessarily have to be all about businesses and profitability. The Effects of the Recession on Public Mood in the UK paper showed us how analysis of social media can be used for nearly anything. While I thought this paper was very well done, the actual experiment seemed a little pointless to me. Of course people are going to be happier around holidays and upset during times of crisis. Even so, this was a good example of how social media can be used to access an incredibly large sample size without even needing permission to conduct research. As social media continues to grow, there is no doubt it will provide a great platform for increasing Customer Relationship Management.

This week’s questions:

Question 1: Of the three social analytics services discussed, which would you choose and why?

Question 2: If you implemented a marketing campaign and increased your followers by 1 million, yet did not see a major change in profitability or conversions, would you still consider it a success?

Question 3: What are some specific CRM ideas you have for improving a struggling company’s social media presence?

I came to conclusion that past was already right – but required a lot to learn in order to develop the understanding and methods further.. Even if your theory and concept were perfect – making it a practice and a reality takes a lot of sweat, consideration, trial and error, right context, position and organization. However, enjoy. This material was better than I remembered (I was a founding member at Taivas Business Design and OneExperience planning director before my current assignment as marketing architect at Toinen PHD). 

That’s what FutureCMO Movement is also about. We have a lot of very exciting work to do

Key take home: Its high time you stop spending too much on promotions and outbound marketing. Lets go inbound, spend less and be effective.

1. Clean up administrative and business processes. Ineffectively managed processes, such as inconsistencies in pay rules, can lead to costly inaccuracies and overpaying.
2. Automate attendance and scheduling. Any kind of unnecessary manual process can consume significant quantities of your organization’s valuable time at all levels. Automation gives you more time to manage your business and uncover new opportunities.
3. Learn to juggle better. Managers oversee multiple things all at the same time. At one point a manager may be helping a customer. At another time, they may be resolving a scheduling conflict between employees. Automating scheduling processes can minimize management’s time and energy in solving workforce problems- so that they can get back to focusing on the business.
4. Plan for success with comprehensive analysis and rigorous business planning.  Lack of planning can lead to costly mistakes. As such, effective labor planning can streamline processes- and with accurate cost analysis, you can manage budgets to plan.
5. Ensure adherence to local, state, and national labor laws and union and corporate policies. If the rules and regulations aren’t followed, your organization can experience significant liabilities due to non-compliance- usually in the form of financial penalties. Be sure your system adheres to FLSA laws and other regulations.
6. Don’t surprise your employees. You may have to cut hours, but this is preferable to losing a source of income. But workers don’t like surprises. Whatever you see is coming down the road, it’s best that you keep your employees aware of what’s going on, especially if the news you are delivering is a reduction in work hours.

Technology can most likely solve the problem of cutting costs without cutting jobs.  A workforce management solution will give organizations increased control over labor costs, mitigate compliance risks, streamline workforce management processes, and maximize workforce productivity.  Sometimes layoffs are the only option, but exploring cost saving options before reducing your workforce should be an organizations first course of action.

1. 2013 will go more mobile

It’s always easiest to predict the most obvious. Taking off from 2012, expect to see more of everything mobile: more mobile web-browsing, more mobile-commerce, more app consumption, more mobile devices.
2. More marketing budgets on Mobile

In 2012, people consumed 11% of their media through mobile (eMarketer), and more companies are expected to increase the spend on mobile marketing including giants like Kraft Foods.

3. Payments via mobile will still be questionable

Consumers still continue to be skeptical in terms of mobile/electronic payments and that is not expected to change anytime soon.

4. If you don’t App, you just Yap.

Companies and Bloggers are going App as the race into the Google Play Store and iStore continues to grow humungous. A significant spend is expected for optimizing the experiences for iOS and Android compared to Windows and Blackberry phones.

5. If no content, people aren’t content.

It’s not just design, it’s going to be content and thought leadership followed by content design. In mid-2013 marketers will move beyond tailoring mobile experiences not just to a device but to a context as well. Consultants and bloggers are already on the way to accomplish this and this will extend to more mobile activity in terms of augmented reality.

What’s on your plate for mobile marketing this year?

It’s like saying my primary job at work is to be present. Feels a little exaggerated? That’s ok, as long as you understand that there’s more to it.

Localization is about going beyond mere translation. It’s about understanding the demographics of your new audience, their tastes n preferences and much more and delivering the value proposition of your offering accordingly.

You also need to take utmost care to ensure that you communicate effectively to your audience by keeping in mind that the content is culturally sensitive.

Check out the ad below, I know it’s very old but worth checking out again:

The above picture shows the postcards used by KitKat in Japan as part of the brand awareness campaign.

What’s localized here?

Kitto katto in Japnese meant “You will surely win” and understanding this Nestle made KitKat postcards and circulated across the postal system.

Since this was culturally appealing, people started using the card for wishing good luck. Thereafter, when people chanced to see the chocolate bar in retail outlets, it didn’t need an introduction. Rest is history!

Research shows that 2% of the employees never get this right. They just go by assumptions and convictions. It can get worse if these people are influential because they could end sending wrong signals.

Successful businesses that built their reputation across the world have been sensitive on this. If you have people among the 2% in your team, educate them on this and whittle down the number.

Ready to deal?

Early steps
For a few months we’ve been offering users of our mobile search interface (which just does a search of our EBSCO discovery system) a list of their recently viewed items and their recent searches. The idea behind testing it on a mobile device was that giving people a link to their recent searches or items viewed would make it easier for people to get back to things that they had accessed on their mobile device by just clicking single links rather than having to bookmark them or type in fiddly links. At the moment the tool just lists the resources and searches you’ve done through the mobile interface.

But our next step is to make a similar tool available through our main library website as a prototype of the ‘articles I’ve viewed’. And that’s where we start to wonder about whether the mobile version of the searches/results should be kept separate from the rest of your activities, or whether user expectations would be that, like a Kindle ebook that you can sync across multiple devices, your searches and activity should be consistent across all platforms?

At the moment our desktop version has all your viewed articles, regardless of the platform you used. But users might want to know in future which device they used to access the material maybe? Perhaps because some material isn’t easily accessible through a mobile device. But that opens up another question, in that the mobile version and the desktop version may be different URLs so you might want them to be pulled together as one resource with automatic detection of your device when you go to access the resource.

Next steps
With the data about what resources are being accessed and what library web pages are being accessed it starts to open up the possibility of some more user-centred use of library activity and analytics data.

So you could conceive of being able to match that there is a spike of users accessing the Athens problems FAQ page and be able to tie that to users trying to access Athens-authenticated resources. Being able to match activity with students being on a particular module could allow you to push automatically some more targeted help material, maybe into the VLE website for relevant modules, as well as flag up an indication of a potential issue to the technical and helpdesk teams.

You could also contemplate mining reading lists and course schedules to predict when there are particular activities that are scheduled and automatically schedule pushing relevant help and support or online tutorials to students. Some of the most interesting areas seem to me to be around building skills and using activity (or lack of activity) to trigger promotion of targeted skills building activities. So knowing that students on module X should be doing an activity that involves looking at this set of resources, and being able to detect the students that haven’t accessed those resources, offering them some specific help material, or even contact from a librarian. Realistically those sorts of interventions simply couldn’t be managed manually and would have to rely on some form of learning analytics-type trigger system.

One of the areas that would be useful to look at would be some form of student dashboard for library engagement. So this could give students some data about what engagement they have had with the library, e.g. resources accessed, library skills completed, library badges gained, library visits, books/ebooks borrowed etc. Maybe set against averages for their course, and perhaps with some metrics about what high-achieving students on their course last time did. Add to that a bookmarking feature, lists of recent searches and resources used, with lists of loans/holds. Finished off with useful library contacts and some suggested activities that might help them with their course based on what is know about the level of library skills needed in the course.

Before you can do some of the more sophisticated learning analytics-type activities I suspect it would be necessary is to have a better understanding of the impact that library activities/skills/resources have on student retention and achievement. And that seems to me to argue for some really detailed work to understand library impact at a ‘pedagogic’ level.

Let’s start with KBIA. I spent two semesters reporting at NPR affiliate KBIA and I loved it. Most people get annoyed with reporting for a radio because it’s really irritating when sources don’t call you back. Yeah..that bothered me too and I hated it but there was something so exciting after completing a story and hearing myself on air. I guess you can say that I love to listen to myself on the radio or on TV. There’s nothing wrong with that though! As I was planning my schedule for my very last semester of college I had a hard time picking my last journalism elective. One of my super helpful professors, Amy, suggested that I take an independent study at KBIA. I decided to help produce the talk show Intersection, it seemed like a lot of fun. Plus I’ve never produced before and I thought it would be pretty awesome to add yet another skill to my resume.

This week I went to my first producer meeting! It was a little overwhelming at first because they were just throwing ideas around and I just sat there trying to take note of everything. We decided that our next show should be about Medicaid and early childhood education, or at least one of those topics. It was decided that I should book all of our guests for the early childhood education segment. Boy..was I scared and nervous. I must have asked a million questions about the right way to go about this. The hard part was that it needed to be done in basically one day. But I succeeded! I managed to book two guests for this upcoming Monday and I was so proud of myself. I’m excited to see what’s to come this semester at KBIA. I may even go back to reporting because I actually kind of miss it.

I also had two shifts at the Missourian for my information graphics class. I decided to really test my skills this semester and see if I have a future in graphics at all. So far..its going as well as it can be. I’ve completed one graphic and all it took was 6 hours! Next time..it will definitely be done in less time than that! But it’s partly because of the fact that you have to wait to get several edits from a few different people and sometimes they have a lot to edit. I made a bar graph for Columbia and Missouri high school graduation rates. I’m really proud of it because it was an idea that I came up with by myself. For the first week, the TA’s usually give you something to do, but I came up with my own idea. It took me a little while to get the hang of Illustrator but it wasn’t so bad after a couple of hours. Here’s my first completed graphic:

I also had to do some research for my capstone project this week. My partner and I are working on a web analytics project for our capstone this semester. Analtyics is something that I’ve worked with a lot in the last few months. During my time with the community outreach team at the Missourian I did some Google analytics and a lot of social media analytics. I’m excited to get going with this project, analytics is always an interesting thing to work with.

We might do it sensibly if we knew where and why to personalize and how to do it.

Few examples:

• To break free the Clutter: For example, if a visitor has already downloaded a certain product or an e-book from your website, you can think of removing those offers from their website experience. Instead you can up sell or cross-sell things related to their previous downloads. That’s a more personalized approach.

• Conversion Forms and process: Extending the above example, the customer would have filled out the registration form on your website before buying something. Make sure that the next time he/she logs in, they don’t need to fill the form and their credentials get filled up when they begin a new purchase process.

• To Address Their Needs and Interests: You may know about their past downloads or you may have identified a buying pattern, it doesn’t mean that you should offer a customized bundle that gives the list of things that they usually bought. That’s being over smart. People visit a website for experience. You may want to ease their navigation process by offering him/her to book mark or favorite a set of offerings on their custom home page. Now, that gives the lacuna for you to make your subtle suggestions too.

Also make sure that you don’t overdo the personalization. It may limit the customer experience or limit the search results they see, which would take a toll on your reputation.

Personalization is more like your pricing, when too low people see it as inferior, if too high it’s unappealing and intrusive. Hence it’s important to hit the sweet spot with the right mixture!!!

Have you experimented this yet?

All morning these messages were evangelized and demonstrated, from IBM executives and their demo teams, to clients like Bosch, Caterpillar and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and even from a Hollywood star-slash-collaborative film development entrepreneur.  Each spoke on the transformational role that collaborative, social engagement is having in our business and personal lives, changing how we work, play, create, engage and in some cases even how we’re paid or rewarded for our efforts.

For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of the keynote came at the end, when Mike Rhodin, SVP IBM Software Solutions Group, spoke to the future and the intersection of social, analytics and people processes.  He spoke of cognitive systems like IBM’s Watson and its ability to filter through the terabytes of data created every day to see patterns, unlock the real truth about business, employees and customers, and to weave intelligence into every aspect of the fabric of a business.

For example, Rhodin asked that we imagine a central “employee center” for global organizations – one which becomes a trusted career advisor from pre-hire through advanced roles in the organization through the continuous analysis of formal, informal, social and other inputs (structured and unstructured) to present a highly personalized, dynamic and guided  path for each individual. Not the static, pre-defined career paths of the past, but truly intelligent, contextual and adaptive guidance to the individual all throughout their career with a company.

Long term future vision?  Not as far off as might be imagined.  Today, Watson is being used in select healthcare use cases such as analyzing patient records and myriad information sources to surface recommended treatment protocols.  Applying similarly deep and broad analysis across the ‘big data’ of the enterprise, with a lens on employee success and value creation for the organization, makes complete sense.  Only big data analytics will be able to effectively interpret all the signals an enterprise may receive around its employees and drive meaningful insights and decision support – for managers and the employees alike.  Embedded cognitive systems are the necessary next step as we evolve our talent technologies and processes from transactional systems to systems of engagement and, ultimately, transform them to the experiential systems necessary to thrive in the future of work.

Of course – the answer isn’t just pure analytical power.  Human engagement and analysis will still be needed.  Even in the Watson-recommended healthcare protocols referenced above, the physician and other caregivers use the results to inform and guide their actions; ultimately the healthcare provider makes the final decision.  Likewise, in the career management and other employeee-oriented engagement scenarios, the cognitive system-delivered paths will serve as guides to inform individuals; Watson won’t replace the person-to-person conversations and analysis that will ultimately drive the employee’s action.  What’s transformational, however, is the richness of information that will inform those individual actions, that can make recommendations based on previously hidden patterns and connections, all because of the capabilities of real-time analysis of vast quantities of seemingly disparate information.

Many announcements are underway here at IBM Connect and the opportunities for the  HCM market are numerous; more to follow in upcoming days.  Meanwhile, let me know what you think about the idea of Watson and related systems and the opportunities for HCM.

• Companies with connections with universities often get access to the best analytics (or computer science, statistics, mathematics, etc.) students; thus helping fill any shortage of analytics talent.
• Faculty and their students can help companies solve problems, thus giving a company “free consulting and, essentially, the chance to screen potential analysts.” In addition, students working on these projects get real-world experience.

It occurred to me that universities themselves should also utilize their analytics talent because these faculty and students can help solve problems or make the university offices run more effectively. Off the top of my head, I can think of three examples where analytics have helped improve a function of a university:

• Academic advising (“College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers“): Arizona State University’s eAdvisor system helps students stay on-track towards completing their programs on time.
• Student retention (“A comparative analysis of machine learning techniques for student retention management“): Oklahoma State University uses data mining tools to help predict which freshmen students are attrition-risks and then intervening to retain them.
• Classroom scheduling.

Any other examples you can think of?

Your business, no matter what it is, should be driven by data. Quite simply it allows you to make fact based decisions, essential to running your operations as effectively as possible. You can plan future efforts based on your results of the past be it doing something because you have been successful or avoiding actions because you know they failed previously.

How do you get this data and act upon, and how do you know what data is relevant to you? Based on the fact that you are probably browsing this website for hints and tips about Social Media, web analytics or digital marketing then I am going to assume that you have some sort of web presence whether your own an eCommerce site, blog or Social Media accounts.

As I have already written a bit on Social Media (and more to come) I will highlight website “analytics”, the data you can get, the tools you can use and useful insights into data that should matter to you (and your business).

Aim

Everything in life has a purpose with the exception of the iPad Mini perhaps, so if you have a web site you will have a goal. It might be that you just want to be informative and get a kick out of helping others. You may be selling a product and want to drive people to buy it. If your site is a business site then the aim is to achieve business goals – whatever they may be.

Questions to Ask

To help you achieve the goals of your site you should try to get the answers to these simple questions:

• What did they do?
• Why did they do it?

 How to Answer

“… did they do …” will undoubtedly vary depending on your website but keeping this article on a really simple level for now, you will need some analytics tool to capture information on visitors to your site. There are literally hundreds of options here: from built-in analytics by blog platforms such as WordPress; to free tools such as Google Analytics; to Enterprise solutions such as Adobe SiteCatalyst. The depth of data you can get back depends on the tools and the implementation but it’s up to you to decide what is important for your site/business.

A standard implementation of tracking code on your web site should give you basic insights to answer the questions, I’ve broken them down with a few examples:

 Simple metrics for “what”

What were visitors doing on your site?

•  page views, number of pages, time spent, comments, shares, exits

This gives an indication of the pages that people looked at, what did they do while on site and when did they leave. You can see how long they spent on your site, if they were there for just one article or they found the pages engaging enough to look at other content too.

 Simple metrics for “why”

Your site has a purpose, but why did they pay it a visit?

• referral information, keywords, pages, entries

Indicative of how the users got to the site and what they wanted to see. Referrals means the site seen before the visit to your site. This could be search engines, social media, tech articles or blogs. If you tie this with potential keywords, if applicable, and the page names of your content, you can see what they were looking for.

Other metrics that are useful are the amount of visitors you had, whether they are new visitors or have been to your site before. Using this information gives you an idea of what your audience actually is and whether your content is successful or not. You can combine many metrics to get very good overview of your sites performance even without fancy tracking capabilities. You can define your Key Performance Indicators from this information, create a simple dashboard for quick reference and act on these results to improve your site accordingly.

http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8

Generating and visualising the map is one thing, capturing data and understanding to generate it is another thing. I’ve done Customer Journey mapping and analysis since 2004 and learned a lot about the differences in methodology and their value. I’d like to share some of my experiences here.

The first thing to start with is to consider how you approach this task. I’ve learned that when the designer him self engage in customer journey mapping and research, the time spend in studying is actually effective planning time. Outsourcing this work to a researcher makes everything much harder. When you as a designer and planner are responsible for planning, you have a completely different idea about what to study and pay attention to instead of researcher.

I’ve learned that starting the work with qualitative interview really help in understanding what it is you need to pay attention to. In the qualitative interviews I have used methodology that has a name in Psychology: “Interpretative phenomenological Analysis”. See more from Psychology – magazine This approach thoroughly study customer’s lived experiences from their perspective. The point in this is, that you need to understand the whole big picture with different touch points, different brands and their content, value proposition and services. You need to see from the customers eyes and experience the market in full. Once you have studied 6-8 people like this, you will be ready to write quantitative study for those customers who have recently done the process or are currently in it. Here’s one sample story about buying a GPS navigator and about conflicting interests along the Customer Journey

How to divide the study in phases?

Majority of the potential innovation driving information is easy to access in case you have a customer register. Considering other journeys apart from buying customer journey, each journey should be separately studied and measured post delivery. I normally study acquisition journey as one study from brand-as-a-platform to Choosing and buying and also ask about post-purchase satisfaction. Using is another study or it can be combined with re-consideration phase, whether people leave or re-buy. Loyalty as such is very much tied to using phase or experiencing the service, which is why combining the latter two would also be a good idea. Always study both won and lost customers. Especially the customers who were lost have a lot to give. By combining different customer groups you will have a better understanding how the market actually works.

If you don’t have a database in use, you can recruit respondents from a panel source with this brief. Depending on the business and brand, the company’s reach in the market place differ very much. If it is possible to find out the number of new deals customers are doing annually, it’s easy to calculate how many did ask for a proposal from you. Closed deals are calculated as conversion from proposals. There’s also hidden movement in companies data they are not aware of. For example customers that are members of your loyalty program also buy from your competitors. Every now and then it’s healthy to ask from current members what they have recently purchased in order to find out how to best approach them and minimize loss of sales and risk of losing members to your competitors. Recently lost customers got initiated for some reason too. How did that happen and why did they not continue their relationship with your brand.

Along with studying customers afterwards, it is very eye-opening to follow what they are doing and to interview them right after they have made their choice. This is different from mystery shopping, because the emphasis is on the customer, not on the store personnel.

The third important source of information apart from customers is your internal organisation working in customer interfaces like helpdesk, customer service, maintenance and sales. They know what questions are frequently asked, what challenges (product failure, need for advice, compatibility issues etc.) are causing most of the costs for the organisation. They are also excellent advisors when considering options how to solve these challenges.

Marketing research often looks into the future perspective and ask about awareness, top-of-mind, preference and shortlist of potential brands. These are all good measures and valuable, but intentional – and could easily lead you to a wrong direction unless you have other KPI’s (key performance indicators) and tools to complement them. The challenge about researching future is that people are quite bad at acting according to their own intentions. Habits, convenience and instincts drive behaviour to unexpected directions that are difficult to predict by research. These studies also often miss a major point. They ask customers which brand they prefer and make them choose one, and consequently fail to recognize the fact that people might have only brand options and not a specific preferred brand.

Example: In case 76% of the customers have a pool of options but they don’t have a specific preferred brand, it means that most of the market is floating. People only have options and consider brands as equally good. When the time comes the best or first/nearest/most conveniently available deal will win regardless the brand as long as the brand is within the pool of options.

When a customer initiates conscious consideration and buying, he’s often active. He’s making searches online, reading ads, discussing about his interest with friends and family, reading product reviews, asking questions from professionals and stores, visiting several websites and outlets, asking opinions and advice. Majority of this behaviour can be analyzed online or with research.

When the customer initiates this journey he’s in charge. At least that’s how he feels. That needs to be taken for granted. He makes decisions. While he’s in charge, he’s being influenced by media, marketing, brands, professionals, sales people,… Eventually the customer is quite likely to buy something he could not have imagined before actually entering the journey. He does the decision eventually but you can influence the choices he makes if you know how to do it. The mapping of the customer journey is composed of he following parts:

1. Touch points: mediums, services, personnel, re-sellers, physical spaces, online. 

Do you have control of the touch point or does a partner manage it? At what point of a customer journey is the customer getting involved with a certain touch point? What can you do in that moment and what are your goals and KPI’s? Can that specific touch point result in to an acquisition or do you need to direct the customer further? What kind of roles a single touch point has and how can you make certain all roles are played out right along the customer journey?

2. Service moments and context

What are the most likely contexts in which the customer engages with the touch point? What is he trying to do? How can you help him achieve that? How is that done? How could it make your product or service look more appealing or at best, a most likely option?

3. Motivation and drivers

Are the customers reaching out for you or is it the other way around? In what kind of mindset does a customer engage with your brand? What could drive him further instead of abandoning your brand? What are the conventions and customs in your business and how could you exceed customer’s expectations by breaking them? Are there other companies that have a similar logic to yours and could you implement their approaches, which already have a proven logic?

4. Decision making process

What is the customer’s decision-making process like? Is he doing it himself or using a consultant or services for comparison? Are there predictable qualities in customer’s selection process that would enhance your capability to adapt your organisation to the customer’s behaviour with right content, value proposition or services? How does the customer move from one stage to the next?

5. Triggers and Moments of truth (initiate/choose/drop/buy/attrition)

Where and at what point are the most important moments of truth defining the majority of your business success? What triggers them to decide or act according to your will? Can you trigger customer behaviour? How can you do that most effectively and which kind of approach result in best outcomes? Why do you win and what do your competitors do better if you lose business to them? How can you outperform your competitors’ actions?

6. Post-purchase satisfaction and recommendations

Would customers buy again if they had a choice? What is your Net Promoter Score Index? What were they satisfied about? Was there dissatisfaction? How can you improve your customer experience in order to earn higher opinion? Do your customers discuss about your product online or face to face? What are they saying? Are they endorsing your brand? Could you use their endorsement for others who are still considering it?

Customer Typologies by behavior

You can easily argue this is not the whole truth. Not all purchases are done like this, consciously working thru a cross-channel decision-making process and eventually buying something. That’s right. And that’s why we needed to create a model for defining critical customer journey models for different kind of purchases. Conscious cross-channel purchase journey is most likely in case of ”3i” purchase. That is High interest, -involvement and/or -investment product or services. However, the buying models and patterns are more complicated than that. Also the behaviour dynamics differ between products, service ranges and between same category brands. You can divide customer behaviour in three major types: Adventurers, Flyers and All-inclusive cruisers

Adventurers: Journey driven people are interested in the products and their qualities. You need to support their needs and change or influence their attitude in order to break in to their awareness. As they search and compare, you need to be able to justify to them why your solution would suit them and guide them to decide and purchase your product/service. These people really consider their user experience and share recommendations in case your performance is beyond expectations. Supporting their needs helps you to perform better with other people representing different behaviour type.

Flyers: Destination driven people also need to be influenced at “need and attitude” -level in order to create better awareness of your offering and it’s qualities. However, this is more about leveraging past reviews and feedback from journey driven people. Destination driven people are more likely to be influenced by e.g. Magazine reviews of your product or other independent sources of information. With such support you can just concentrate on tactical advertising in order to encourage decision and purchase making. Destination driven people are interested in the user experience and reviewing their own experience to others.

All inclusive cruisers: Public opinion driven people accept your offering when it’s widely used and they are completely certain that choosing your offering has no risk what so ever. It’s all about tactical advertising and encouraging purchase. They are not likely to share their opinion to others or recommend your products or services.

The share of each of the previous groups vary by product category and brand. The rules of engagement apply and they must be considered in the mapping too. These laws apply like gravity and this means  that same tools and methods in marketing certainly don’t apply to every case in the same way. Here is the rules of engagement map: a) Level of 3i and b) who’s the active party.

I know doing this kind of mapping sounds like awful lot of work, but I can guarantee that doing it is one of those things you celebrate most later on. Trying to compile data from different sources or doing this with qualitative interviews will deliver 70% right answers and generate innovation too, but doing it this way will give you more insight than you have ever got about your competitors success and failure, understanding the role of different channels and information sources and about market dynamics in general. This approach is a gold mine.

Well, there are a number of ways how to maps and document customer journey. They are all ok, but built for different purposes and they offer different kind of value. One great source of information for visualisation and internal/qualitative process is http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8

What do you think? I’d love to get some comments

If you liked this one, check out how to manage customer interfaces and first stage along the customer journey Brand-as-a-roadsign

Next article, I’ll write about some experiences and insights from other Customer Journey stages. If you enjoy these articles, please subscribe this  blog to your email or join our LinkedIn Group

Simply put, does it matter for you? Lets look at the top information areas sought by organizations using bigdata:

• Customer Insights, Segmentation and Targetting
• Budgetting and forecasting
• Operations and Supply chain
• Customer service

Source: McKinsey Survey

Understandably the need for information will differ according to industry and organizations.

Also you’ll have some organizations who will keep trying free samples of big data analytics from different service providers with no intention of buying at any point( No pun intended, happens with many organizations )

But the fact is that some sectors are positioned for bigger benefits from big data. Here’s McKinsey’s chart for you:

From the chart, it’s clear that currently retailers are the current greatest beneficiaries of Big Data. The reason being- they are the ones who had better at collecting and analyzing the data compiled.

For other industries, you need to improve on information gathering and analysis.  Well, it might not be easy, but if done effectively it will make your life unexpectedly easy.

Are you on it?

They also found that the 2/3 figure was approximately the same over a 3 year period, so we can say with good confidence that the majority of customers seem to value excellent customer service and presumably also an excellent customer experience.  I guess there is no surprise here.

So why don’t companies offer an excellent customer experience as standard fare?  Well, the answer is obvious: The obstacle is the significant investment required to provide a high level of service and other desirable attributes of an excellent customer experience.  B2C providers can obviously improve the customer experience by hiring more qualified agents, giving them more training, personalizing the conversations, improving integration between agent desktop and IVR, adding new channels such as video chat and social media, and the list goes on ad infinitum.  We know from the above study and common sense that consumers will pay more for better service, but how much more?  The American Express study gives us some indication as shown above, but we really need to know what consumers perceive as “excellent” customer service and what they would pay if they were making the commitment with real dollars instead of hypothetical dollars.  Executive management would need to weigh that potential additional revenue against the cost to deliver the better service, and that brings us around to the premise of this edition of the blog:

It’s not about the customer experience, it’s all about the ROI on the customer experience!!

Industry pundits would have us wrap ourselves in the comfort of the customer experience security blanket and start preaching that gospel.  But the company shareholders have another agenda: Invest in the customer experience to the extent it gives an ROI that is better than the ROI available from the many other projects that affect company profitability.  We need to acknowledge that companies have a myriad of options for their investment dollars, and customer experience is just one, albeit a complex one.  If we limit our discussion to the market space related to customer interactions, perhaps ROI is higher for driving more revenue with enhanced cross-sell or up-sell.  Or perhaps the ROI is higher for IVR cost containment that keeps low value customers in the IVR longer than high value customers.

Not only are there competing opportunities for additional investment in a better customer experience, but determining the ROI to make an investment decision is complicated.  When you really start to peel back the layers of the onion, every individual customer has a unique view of a better customer experience.  Is a better customer experience Spanish language availability in the IVR, white glove treatment by agents, or making attractive offers for new services? There are literally hundreds of options.

The point of all of this is that you really don’t know whether to invest precious shareholder dollars on making traditional customer interactions into intelligent customer interactions (and associated excellent customer experience) until you have done some of the work we talked about in earlier editions of this blog.  You need analytics of Big customer Data to understand likely customer preferences, you need analysis of your existing customer service processes, and you need a flexible software platform to easily implement changes to the customer conversation.  With these tools you can easily try new customer service features on individual customers or customer segments, measure associated customer satisfaction and try new features where customer satisfaction has not improved.  The software platform most likely to support this iterative approach will be some form of real-time decisioning solution tightly integrated with the customer communication channels in which you want to improve the customer experience.

Finally, even if a company has considered implementing technology that can deliver intelligent customer interactions, few firms have done the complex analysis to understand the benefits that might accrue not only to customer experience but also cross-sell and up-sell, cost reduction, loyalty, etc. The ones that have done the analysis understand that the benefits accrue across organizational boundaries. Cross-sell and up-sell helps Marketing achieve its objectives, cost savings helps the VP of Operations and CFO, loyalty helps Marketing, better customer experience helps the VP of Operations and Chief Experience Officer.  It’s very difficult to get concurrence across such a broad range of people in a large B2C organization, so it’s very difficult to agree on a technical solution that addresses customer experience challenges.

With all that said, is it any wonder that the customer experiences we typically have with large B2C companies are less than excellent?